Set in stone

Nicolas packed up and left today, not to return until after the holidays to complete the job.

But the legacy he's leaving us with is spectacular. The scaffolding is all gone. The grout is drying to a very gentle tan. And the place looks magnificent. The southern wall is completely complete now.

And the eastern wall beneath the balcony is nearly finished as well. Just some tiny detail things to fix up. Nicolas is a big one for tiny details. Really nice work. Still needs to dry out though.

I love it.

In January, he'll come back and do the most important wall of all: the verandah facade. This is the one we're gonna be living with most in-our-faces, since we plan on spending so much of our warm-weather hours enjoying life from the terrace:

That'll be big and beautiful. I can't wait. After that, since we're so happy with his work, we'll talk to him about the northern wall of the house. That's a smaller job, since it's only one storey. And we'll likely want to remove a huge chunk of it as well, converting the front office's northern wall into an enormous forest-facing window.

But for now, we are delighted with how stony our stone house is looking. Inside its warm walls, we'll have a happy holiday indeed.